Page:Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day.djvu/83

 of his earlier novels, the brilliant young littérateur left England, spent the winter in Constantinople, and visited Syria, Egypt, and Nubia, before his return in 1831. He came back with new views of life and politics. He had penetrated the Asian Mystery, and was something between a Tory and a Whig. Recommended by Hume and O'Connell, he tried Wycombe three times for a seat in Parliament, and was unsuccessful. Then he turned up at Taunton, and discovered himself, what he is now, a Conservative; and in the ardour of his electioneering eloquence attacked the Irish demagogue.

Politics ran higher then than now, and O'Connell replied: 'Mr. Disraeli calls me traitor: my answer to that is that he is a liar. He is a liar in action and in words. His life is a living lie.' This was not quite strong enough. He went on: 'When I speak of Mr. Disraeli as a Jew, I mean not to taunt him on that account. Better ladies and gentleman than amongst the Jews I have never met with. They were once the chosen people of God. There were miscreants among them, however; and it must certainly have been from one of those that Disraeli descended. He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who died upon the Cross, whose name must have been Disraeli. For aught I know, the present Disraeli is descended from him; and, with the impression that he is, I now forgive the heir-at-law of the blasphemous thief that died upon the Cross.'

O'Connell's coarse wit stopped at nothing; but he had a foeman worthy of his steel in the younger Disraeli, as he was called then. O'Connell was bound by a vow not to fight a duel; and Disraeli called upon the son of the demagogue to assume 'his vicarious duties of yielding satisfaction for the insults which his father lavished with impunity on his political opponents.'

Morgan O'Connell did not accept the challenge; and Disraeli wrote Daniel O'Connell a letter, in which he said:

'Although you have long since placed yourself out of the pale of civilisation, still I am one that will not be insulted even by a Yahoo without chastising IT....I called upon your son to assume his vicarious office of yielding satisfaction for his shrinking sire. I admire your scurrilous allusions to my origin...You say that I was once a Radical and am now a Tory. My conscience acquits me of ever having deserted a political friend, or of ever having changed a political opinion. I have nothing to appeal to